By Muhammad Soban ISLAMABAD, March 18 (INP-WealthPK): Use of modern agriculture methods can help Pakistan achieve food security as currently the country’s 38% population is food insecure, according to International Food Security Assessment. Ensuring food security has been a challenge for the developing economies, which have to address the issues of hunger and malnutrition by 2030 under the Sustainable Development Goals. It is to be noted here that after remaining virtually unchanged for five years, the global prevalence of undernourishment increased by 1.5 percentage points in just one year and reached around 9.9%, thanks mainly to Covid-19 pandemic that disrupted the supply chains and triggered worldwide lockdowns, throwing millions out of job. According to the International Food Security Assessment 2021, around 1.2 billion people are food insecure around the globe. The data shows that 647 million people, including 72% in Asia (particularly India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia), and 21% in Sub-Saharan Africa, are food insecure. Despite producing a certain level of major crops, Pakistan’s agriculture sector is unable to meet the food requirements of the growing population. Though there are many factors that contribute to food insecurity in Pakistan, major issues that mar the country’s ability to have enough food to feed all are low per acre yield, low soil fertility, inadequate storage and cold storage facilities, non-utilisation of the whole agricultural land and instability in food supply chain. Pakistan’s per acre yield of all major crops is lower than other countries. Pakistan’s wheat yield is three tonnes per hectare, as against up to six tonnes per hectare of other wheat-producing countries. The per acre yield can be increased with the help of modern technologies and introducing cross-breeding to improve plant varieties that produce higher yields. Yet yield cannot be increased through cross-breeding if land is not that fertile. Currently, synthetic fertiliser is used in the agriculture sector, which has a high cost and effect on the ecosystem. There is a need to promote the use of biological fertilisers (composting, manure or dung) to increase soil fertility. Though Pakistan has one of the largest irrigation systems, it still cannot irrigate all the agricultural land. There is a need to adopt modern irrigation systems that are cost-effective and use less water. In Pakistan, a large quantity of food is wasted during production, storage and transport. According to WWF statistics, 36 million tonnes of food is wasted every year in Pakistan. Such food losses are attributable to several factors, including a lack of access to ready markets, adequate storage facilities, affordable refrigeration, and local crop-processing facilities. There is a need to use new technologies for storage and transport to minimise the loss. Pakistan can also make use of nanotechnology to preserve food. Pakistan could also use the biofortification method to increase the nutrient density of food crops to overcome the stunted growth problem. Due to floods and droughts in Pakistan, many food crops are wasted every year. Modern weather forecasting technologies must be utilised to avoid such disasters.